At the BAFTA Video Games Lecture in London, Media Molecule technical director Alex Evans spoke about the game industry's focus on new technology, to the detriment of the gaming experience itself. The LittleBigPlanet developer prefers to use such tech to make things simpler for gamers, instead of adding complexity to the system.
"I think there's a huge mistake that the industry makes as a whole and that is to talk about technology as this arms race – who's got the coolest shaders and who's got the most polygons,” Evans said. "Back in 2005 when we started Media Molecule, the next generation of consoles were just arriving on the scene and it was expected that the technology was going to be an incredibly difficult and complex barrier. We were aware of this but really wanted to use technology to simplify games."
"Why are we not using this fancy technology to make the images that we deliver more beautiful?” he asked developers.
Evans cautioned developers on quickly implementing new technology and techniques, as they could make development iteration a difficult and costly process.
"All the people who have a desire to create something end up being utterly miserable because they can't iterate. It's like being punched in the face – you have to fail at something to know how to fix it and if you can't fail quickly you're doomed,” he said.
Media Molecule's second shot at making things simpler for gamers, LittleBigPlanet 2, will hit the PS3 in January of 2011.
[Via Eurogamer]
